EDMONTON – Const. Mike Bates quickly scans the top floor of Vinyl Retro Dance Lounge.The Jasper Avenue nightclub is almost empty on this wet and cold Friday night – save for a few bar staff and two or three customers. It’s 9:32 p.m. and Bates is finishing his first round of venue walk-throughs. “You get a feel for the crowd,” he says. “If a guy gives you the stink eye, you introduce yourself, say ‘Have a great night. Hope I don’t see you later’.”
Vinyl and Oil City Roadhouse, which share quarters in the old Saveco building, are now owned by Mike Stang. He bought the two clubs from Oil City Hospitality Group in April.
Bates shakes hands with Jasper Avenue’s newest club owner. The two talk about ID scanning systems, which help keep track of banned patrons; trying to get smokers to puff away in the back alley; and a new taxi sign, posted on a street pole in front of Oil City Roadhouse. “If you have any problems or ever need a hand, just send me a text,” says Bates.
Stang, a businessman from Cold Lake, smiles at the offer. It’s exciting to have this support, he says. “Coming from a smaller city, we don’t have these resources.”
The rest of the night doesn’t come close to exciting – until about 11:25 p.m., when Bates gets a text from the night manager at The Starlite Room on 102nd Street: “Can you come by please?” As it turns out, staff escorted two men out of the venue, but they’re still hanging around the front of the building. Bates and his partner check the men’s ID. “You know the drill,” says Bates, after returning their driver’s licences. “Yup, you’re leaving.”
The two men shrug their shoulders and trundle away. “I’ve dealt with one of them before … at Oil City,” says Bates. “We try to come in and negotiate a peaceful resolution.”
As one of Jasper Avenue’s four beat officers, Bates wants to make sure downtown’s rapidly expanding nightlife is safe and fun – for thousands of potential revellers and those who work, live and play in the neighbourhood.
Between 2007 and 2011, nine new bars, clubs and pubs opened in the Jasper Avenue entertainment district – from the Oliver neighbourhood to 101st Street, from 101st to 104th Avenues. As a result of these growing numbers, Edmonton Police Service officials say another 12 beat officers will start working Jasper Avenue over the next few months.
Safety is paramount – ever since the Canada Day riots in 2001, when drunken revellers hucked beer bottles, and damaged and looted stores along Whyte Avenue, the city’s other major bar scene. Residents and business owners in Old Strathcona wanted to protect, yet promote their area – not just with restrictive bylaws, but proactive measures.
In 2007, the City of Edmonton created Responsible Hospitality Edmonton (RHE) and the Public Safety Compliance Team, which plan, manage and police the city’s entertainment districts. In 2010, the city launched the Jasper Avenue Entertainment Working Group, made up of residents, business owners, city staff and police officers, to specifically deal with downtown’s nightlife – and issues of vandalism, noise, and fighting. According to the group’s 2010 survey, only 22.5 per cent of 1,381 respondents said they felt safe on Jasper Avenue when it’s dark.Another 27.2 per cent said they felt unsafe, 14.7 per cent felt very unsafe, while 29.7 per cent were neutral.
Last week, 31-year-old Gabriel Gregg, of Nanaimo, B.C., died from injuries suffered in a late-night assault on Jasper and 107th Street. Police charged Derrick Shawn Hansen, 36, with one count of manslaughter. And in May, there was a shooting death in the parking lot outside Diesel Ultra Lounge, near Rexall Place.
Still, Sgt. Nicole Chapdelaine, co-ordinator of the Public Safety Compliance Team, says Edmonton’s nightlife is getting much safer. The team, made up of police officers, fire and bylaw officials, and Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission inspectors, works with nightspots to tighten up their security, particularly after violent crimes.
“Anecdotally, I can say that through the work we’ve all done, there’s been a decrease in the severity and frequency of calls,” she says. “Those numbers have gone down in the last five years; we don’t see the same levels of violence. That’s why what happened at Diesel was so shocking. We knew they had some concerns, but the ownership group was always able to manage their clientele.”
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Proactive
A young, slightly drunk man toddles over to Angela Turner at The Pint on 109th Street.
“You’re a babe,” he gushes, then places a strand of Mardi Gras-style beads around her neck. A few minutes later, the young man’s father sheepishly walks over. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I hope he’s not bothering you.”
Turner smiles. As the program manager of Responsible Hospitality Edmonton, she studies the city’s nightlife and shapes transportation, safety and business policies. Her mission? To come up with initiatives that will help the City of Edmonton manage its entertainment districts – from late-night buses and washrooms to the first economic impact assessment of late-night licensed venues. A report, which includes the dollar value generated by these venues, will be released June 21 and presented to the city’s executive committee six days later. “You’ll be shocked,” she says.
Since RHE was formed in 2007, Turner and her staff have set up ashtrays on Whyte Avenue; started a pilot project for late-night bus service in Old Strathcona; and recommended the construction of permanent washrooms, which will soon open on the corner of Gateway Boulevard. (Alas, Turner says, Jasper Avenue won’t be getting its temporary toilets this year, due to budget cuts.)
The organization has also helped Edmonton win an award for most Sociable City from the Responsible Hospitality Institute, and partnered with Best Bar None, a voluntary program for nightspots. Owners and staff must meet stringent standards in areas such as training, first aid, fire safety and transportation to be accredited.
On The Rocks, a pub at 118th Street and Jasper Avenue, is one of the participants.
“We want to be socially responsible,” says James Der, one of On The Rocks’s night managers. “We’re one of the safest places in the city.”
To devise RHE policies, Turner and her colleagues often tour the Old Strathcona and Jasper Avenue, the city’s two most popular night spots. On this Saturday night in May, Turner and Barb Ursuliak meet up with Sgt. Maurice Brodeur on the corner of 105th Street and Whyte Avenue. It’s 11:20 p.m. and the streets of Old Strathcona are swimming with revellers.
“Everybody is still relatively sober,” he says. “Friday night is fight night. Saturday night is date night.”
In front of The Rack, a cross between a pub, billiard hall and club, a small queue of men and women wait behind a rope. “No jaywalking please,” reads a nearby sign. “No admittance for violators. Please use crosswalk.”
Four preppy guys saunter across the middle of the street – oblivious to the sign and Sgt. Brodeur. “C’mon guys,” he sighs. “It’s a $1,000 fine between the four of you. Be careful.”
Jaywalking is a problem on Whyte Avenue. So is transportation. There aren’t enough taxis and there’s still no regular late-night bus service. “That’s when a lot of the fights start,” says Turner. “Guys are competing for cabs. They’re competing for food. They’re competing for women.”
“But there’s just this huge misconception that everyone is plastered and that’s just not true,” adds Ursuliak.
Turner says trying to grab a cab isn’t as much of a problem on Jasper Avenue. On this night, it’s easy. Only a few nightspots seem busy, including The Common and The Pint on 109th Street, and On The Rocks, a pub on 118th Street. The latter’s parking lot is packed with cars and trucks parked every which way, boxing each other in. “There are a lot of fender-benders here,” says Ursuliak. “We’re trying to work with owners to figure it out.”
Back on Whyte, Turner and Ursuliak duck into Lucky 13 to point out some of the club’s security practices. A doorman checks the ID of patrons, another pats them down. Coat check is mandatory.
Safety is vital for business, says Kamran Moslehi, district manager for Prestige Hospitality Syndicate, owner of Lucky 13, Filthy McNasty’s, and The Pawn Shop.
“It’s a big priority,” he says. “It’s big for reputation.”
Whyte nights
Jim Czelenski walks through a pack of giggly women in Hudsons Canadian Tap House, counting the number of patrons in the Whyte Avenue pub on a Saturday night.
He’s a fire prevention officer and one of the members of the Public Safety Compliance Team. As part of their purview, they inspect random late-night venues across Edmonton – looking for overcrowding, blocked fire exits, underage or intoxicated drinkers, gang members, unruly customers, and other potential problems.
As Czelenski and Wes Skakun, a city bylaw officer, do separate counts, Const. Jacob Montgomery asks a baby-faced customer for his ID. He’s legal.
The team continues to walk through the mazelike pub, around the dance floor, next to some booths, and out the front door. Ten minutes later, members compare notes on the sidewalk as girls in mini-dresses stagger around them. Hudsons passes with flying colours.
“Typically, you can tell whether you need do to a count if there’s no space to walk through,” says Czelenski.
“Here, the occupancy load is 242 (people), plus 36 with the patio. I counted 262 people, so it’s good. People move around so it’s not a perfect count, but it gives you a pretty good indication. If I found it was overcrowded, I’d have to do another count. So would Wes. A fire-code violation comes with fines of up to $15,000 or six months in jail.”
Inspections aren’t the team’s only duties. It also works with bars, clubs and lounges to solve issues of violence. After an incident, the team can impose various conditions – such as making an owner install video surveillance, create a manual of policies or keep a list of banned customers.
“We’re not here to shut people down; we want people to be successful,” says Chapdelaine. “We’re looking at public safety, the impact on civic services and emergency services and trying to keep an acceptable balance for everyone.”
Chapdelaine says a pub/club/lounge can often become a trouble spot over what were initially minor infractions – like scanning only a few people’s ID cards or letting customers smoke inside the establishment.
“You’ll end up attracting a clientele who will take advantage of you,” she says. “If you’re not going to step up and be an owner, they’ll just walk all over you. They’ll start bringing in their own bottles of booze, they start running the door.”
When the man was killed outside Diesel Ultra Lounge in May, Chapdelaine says, the team was ready to work with the northside club to draw up a safety plan. But the owners decided to shut the room down.
Until recently, Diesel and other bars could hire special-duty police officers but Chapdelaine says Edmonton Police Service has discontinued the practice. “I can’t say that having our members out front of Diesel would’ve stopped the shooting,” she says. “Half the people at the club weren’t even scanned in. Had the club scanned everybody, we would’ve been able to find out who was responsible for it. If you’re going to cut corners and put our members at risk, that’s not going to work.”
Last year, the city temporarily suspended the business licence of 180 Degrees, a club on 107th Street and 107th Avenue, after a man shot a gun through a door. (The owner decided not to reopen.)
In 2010, the team ordered the 14-day closure of Gingur Sky Lounge, after four people were wounded in the club’s eighth shooting in two years. (Its owner also decided not to reopen.) Twilight, a downtown after-hours club, had its business licence revoked after a fatal shooting, while Blush Lounge (shots fired outside) and Iron Horse (triple stabbing) voluntarily closed their doors.
Jesse James Kupina, who owns The Ranch Roadhouse and Union Hall, says every violent incident hurts the industry as a whole.
“We have ID scanners and we work with the police on who we shouldn’t let in here, but again, you just don’t know who everyone in the city is,” he says. “If I had an 18-year-old kid, yeah, I’d be nervous about sending him to a nightclub, too. It’s not just Diesel, these people are everywhere. It does suck. I wouldn’t want to see it happen to my biggest competitor because that means I’m not immune.”
The team now hopes to prevent problems long before a venue opens for business. As of January of this year, any establishment that serves alcohol and prohibits minors must file plans for medical/safety emergencies, noise control, security, and managing intoxicated/disorderly customers when applying for (or renewing) a business licence. The team will review these plans, but can only make recommendations to the chief licensing officer.
“This helps us to be more proactive and bar owners to be more proactive,” says RHE’s Angela Turner.
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